I don’t normally buy into the ‘we woz robbed’ line and it it has to be admitted that for a lot of the game yesterday Arsenal weren’t sharp enough.
Whilst the defenders and the pairing of Diaby and Denilson did a pretty good job of defending, we were slow to get the ball forward. It was frustrating until the last twenty minutes. Without Fabregas, Walcott, Song and Van Persie we don’t seem to have enough invention and drive. Maybe the downside of Arsenal’s current formation is that only one central striker gets to maintain top match form at a time. That said, we did have enough to win. I think that the referee and assistant got the decisions everyone is talking about wrong. Especially the second one.
If you were being charitable to the referee for the first, you could say that the tug on the arm outside the box was minor as Arshavin carried on and then in the box he was running out of room anyway when Bramble fell into him. Personally I thought it was a penalty.
The offside decision was clearly wrong and the goal should have stood. Little moments that could change a season eh! No doubt Birmingham fans will point out that what goes around comes around as Arsenal should have faced a penalty in the Carling Final but there we are.
So mixed feelings about the Arsenal performance. We were not good enough for most of the match, but we were good enough in the final quarter to have scraped three points. Now we must rely on Liverpool’s restocked forward line-up to do the business against Manchester United’s second choice central defence.
***** Arsenal Sunderland Man of the Match poll running here. *****
